A robotic underwater vehicle powered by ocean movement

A robotic underwater vehicle that is powered entirely by natural, renewable, ocean thermal energy has been developed, holding out promise of almost indefinite monitoring of the ocean depths for climate and marine life studies.

Scalable for use on most robotic oceanographic vehicles, this technology breakthrough could usher in a new generation of autonomous underwater vehicles.Researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), Pasadena, California and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, completed the first three months of an ocean endurance test of the prototype vehicle off the coast of Hawaii in March.

“People have long dreamed of a machine that produces more energy than it consumes and runs indefinitely,” said Jack Jones, a JPL principal engineer and SOLO-TREC co-principal investigator.

“While not a true perpetual motion machine, since we actually consume some environmental energy, the prototype system demonstrated by JPL and its partners can continuously monitor the ocean without a limit on its lifetime imposed by energy supply,” added Jones.